I rest my faults on my tongue And though it is textured as glass The taste is of raspberry Or blood I fail to distinguish My throat hurts From the cuts The bed is warm Like unwavering ash Like a tired pyre And I search with numb fingers My eyes; closed now For this is a dream I am not dead For this is a dream There is no bed The room I wake up to is all ochre And I am naked waist up Breath fills my belly And I shiver as the cold air claims my hunger My lungs, this ribcage holding together Heartbeats tearing to escape Stands out Like fingers from my skin I am a man no more Just random thoughts on a paper And my infinitesimal existence Like rings of rising vapour I remember being beautiful I remember being a being I remember writing those lyrics Which no man could ever sing But it is cold now And I feel I am too old to be young Now it is cold And I know I am too young to be old The winter is at the window And it is not going to wait The fire is long gone Now I am just a butterfly under the blanket And I would have closed my eyes Had the pillow not snored back Whispering to me All the things that I lack Privy to my dreams It does so on my behalf So when my dream does shatters I am not alone when I laugh
The ocean does not speak of sadness For sadness has no voice that can say That being empty is like being filled forever An infinite without a way And when I with my eyes look out At a world where each face has a place I wonder who really wins If it’s in a circle that everyone does race True it is tragic that in the end There is no magic that holds all the cards For his is the glory of the game Who plays his joker as ace when it’s hard And I know in this mesmerizing madness For the follicle of that forever fame People play their pieces for practice Unaware that they will never be the same And so do I yearn to sit By the shore where horizons do cease And thank the seed of silence For this life that I had on a lease
He carried a corpse on his shoulder A straw man made of stone And walked the nowhere path A footstep in a crowd; alone He had feathers on his broken back Which wept on silent nights And he wished for a shooting star Having never had one in sight The man was armed with silence And buried tears in each eye Had no heart of which to speak of And dared not ask why So he searched his own shadow That wet the mosaic floor And wondered if his life Even mattered anymore For he was a mortal man Who died in his own dreams And come night only his pillow Answered back his screams He thought of leaving it all And be dust and be free He thought of casting his anchor In the middle of the barren sea For him the changing world Was a wave that ever repeats And he questioned unto the chaos Why do I rhyme when nothing fits?
Her face was a prison of prisms Her eyes twin melodies of mind Her skin shone like vanishing velvet Her kiss was one of a kind But she was no fabled princess Wandering lost at his open door Nor was she a cast away goddess He had once prayed to before She was a woman in making And held her heart in her own hand She knew the world as her oyster And she a pearl in the prophetic sand She saw the world with its visage brimming With light bulbs and bright lies So she searched for the one who stood With bruises like midnight skies He was a naked man Unclothed; without a name Who counted a single star Thinking that all were same To her he was a child unfed Left to roam as a newborn in wild Once without a home Through fate utterly exiled
He saw her hand in the ocean And the world closed around his eyes As he drowned in the water that whispered Breathe now or the dream dies He felt her fingers upon his shoulder And he answered back in kind Till their lips sealed shut a secret Which no soul could ever find And they danced in the depths like dolphins Two kindred hearts as one Who wished so much for the stars That they grew their own sun So that when the leaves now rustle And the colours do not make sense They can watch the silence get slower And the rainbow go back in rain
If my face now makes you weep Let my voice then put you to sleep So tomorrow when you awake Like a flower on someone’s grave Know there lies underneath He who asked you once to save
Let me fall now, no Let me fade away instead I am tired of being ever alone Of being always afraid
I was a fool to grapple with the dark, you know, A fool to light my heart on fire A fool to eat the wounded ashes To taste the honey of that sweet desire
I was blind with my eyes open Blind to the water rising around my waist Blind to see that I with my words Was no different than the rest
So here I am now, here, A face amongst other faces: All fools condemned henceforth To die; by hanging on her tresses
I should have known it, I should have For it was no secret after all That there was magic in her voice And that it was a siren’s call
It was this damned dream, you see, To be together in the end So surreal that I forgot It was all make-believe, a pretend
I am going now, I am gone There are other lovers in the line They ask me if she is a goddess And I answer: Yes, if the Devil’s Divine…
I have spent half my life Looking how I was wanted to be seen Powdered to the tip of my nose Accurately thin With anklets on my feet That laughed alone in night And a locket round my neck Buried out of sight I had flowers on my frocks When I was a lotus bud soft pink And roses in my hair locks When I was allowed to think As if my beauty was just a face Without a wish or voice As if being born the way I was Had something to do with choice If only I could have told them then The thoughts I had in my mind Of my mantelpiece existence Of being beautiful but kept blind Alone as my own mirror Echoing solitude Days spent dressed for the world to wonder And nights being ashamed to be nude
All I can think about is dust and dusk And drowning in a shattered sea Made of glass Like a photograph of a falling man Who is never truly falling But eternally trapped With a suspended scream In an endless dream Like a dreamless wraith; Weightless and wordless As an orphan in death
But sometimes the night is too strong for me to sleep And the dreams I have are too dark for me to keep So I become a cobweb on the far wall Or a three pin plug lost in a socket Some crumpled paper on the floor Or a faded face in an old heart shaped locket A catharsis of cause Building prisons to be free An empty ship sailing An emptier sea
Where there is fog in the air And yet I stare Like a blind man blinking Without thinking at the sky Wondering in my own vacuum About the mute purpose of ‘Why’ With voices at the edge of my vision And footsteps at the back of my mind I am dreaming of being asleep And afraid of losing what I cannot find
Thus, in this black and white world In this sharp and smooth world In this loud and quiet world In this bitter and sweet world In this dull and fragrant world I shall remain awake Till a different tomorrow
I was born out of the blue Like a star without a face And shall one day be falling too As dust without a trace In hope that when I am gone Those very few whom I knew Kept something of the light With which their wish came true…
I wait at the newspaper stand Reading, the morning is grey Ash tinted Like an old man’s asthma
Buds of people are sprouting From windows and eggshell alleyways Dressed in yesterday’s dreams And tommorow’s promises Faces creased, bespectacled With white hairs a halo From the century long sunlight Age ever ached to swallow
A ballad pours from the the barbershop The old stereo is crooning about Footsteps falling on azure fields And carts on country roads I can smell the aftershave At once bitter and sweet The razor once again vacant Without the borrowed heartbeat
There is a fallacy here Between the words and vision I read and see The stories seem vibrant but life colour-free Perhaps it is the weight of being That makes it so For all of us do wither But only some of us grow
The children have gathered on the footpath A bell in some temple tolls The priests are praying for bliss And in laughter a football rolls I watch, I watch The world divided in unison Each hour be day or night Being a part of every season
So I pay my fair share It’s time for me to leave And be one amongst the masses Who in eternity believe Of everyday man and their everyday deeds In the cycle of fruit from the flower and flower from the seeds If only one would question; Does the roots if ever know? Of the world that blooms outside from their breaths buried below
